Nazelles-Négron, Vouvray, Chenin country (Loire)
Last year was the first vintage of Thomas Puechavy who in his former life was a musician (he led the group Moriarty, with international musicians/singers but most being raised in France). I met him through another musician who also moved into the vigneron life, Ben Nerot. Thomas is not originally from this region (he's from Paris) but he often came to the Loire valley since childhood, in Sologne, and he was familiar to see Loire wines on the family table, his father loving Cheverny, Cour-Cheverny and
When playing for concerts across France they often went through wine regions, staying in wine farms sometimes, and Thomas slowly aknowledged this other life that vignerons enjoyed there. During his free time and low season (for the concert tours) he would now and then travel back to the wineries and give a hand and learn the trade bit by bit, for example in Alsace and in Puy-Notre-Dame (Loire), also in Banyuls and the Médoc, with short one-week experiences that familiarized with to the job and wine culture. At one point the band went dormant with each musician going his/her own way and as he had been thinking for a few years about moving out of Paris he looked closer at this potential vigneron life.
Thomas Puéchavy enrolled in the Amboise wine/viticulture school in the Loire for a formal training (in 2016-2017) for a year and a half, not knowing really yet what he'd do at the end. He spent a year there for the CS Viti Bio degree (organic viticulture) with very good teachers, the only such cursus in France. He was in the wine school with Marie Rocher who enrolled the same year. During the school time he had trainings at Bertrand Jousset. After that he worked for a year at Tanguy Perrault in Vouvray (2016-2016) and he ended up finding the vineyards in the region, after also looking elsewhere in the area. He and his family (he has two children) first rented someting in Amboise and he later found this cellar with a large house attached overlooking the Loire river outside of the village of Nazelles (pictured on right). It's by the way very close to the village of Pocé-sur-Cisse where another musician, Mick Jagger, stays much of his time (he stayed there during the lockdown months as well).
I met Thomas first in his large block of vineyards (3 hectares, only Chenin Blanc) which he rents near the Vouvray cemetery on an area overlooking the Loire river, it's a nice place with a light breeze, and the neighboring parcel belongs to Domaine Huet with a 4-hectare block next to his own, meaning of course it is very safe because also organicly farmed. On the other hand his own wines can't be labelled as Vouvray because his chai/cellar is located in Nazelles which is just outside the Appellation limit, and although in the village of Nazelles some parts of the village get the allowance to label in Vouvray (that's the tricky side of the appellation system sometimes).
The block here was farmed conventionally before, so it is now in its first year of conversion to organic. But in the last year (2018) before he got the vineyard there hasn't been any sprayings, chemicals or herbicide, which helped him for the reconversion to organic (the down part being that it suffered much from mildew that year because of no spraying at all). Some of the rows are between 20 and 35 years with a good vigor and another part of the block is older with rows between 60 and 80 years old. On the oldest (80) part, only 60 % of the vines remain, there are lots of missing ones, from disease or tractor missteps along the years. It's a lot of work but he can replant progressively. The owner previously employed a worker for the vineyard and he would then sell the wine in bulk to the négoce, he wasn't maintaining the vineyard along the last 5 to 6 years.
For some vines that are in bad shape but still have a robust rootstock he may graft them himself, he says for example that Vincent Carème does his own graftings, helped by his wife, they don't use the Omega graft technique which is problematic for the health of the vine, he'll try himself to renew the parcels this way as he has a long-term rent but this is a lot of work. Tanguy Perrault does it also and it takes him just 10 to 15 minutes for a graft.
Thomas sent me later this video of him at the wheel of the old Renault 60, with what I believe is a grass-mowing tool in the back. The Renault 60 is a tracteur vigneron meaning it's narrow enough to pass between the rows. Here it is also equipped with a foldable plow on the side (for the décavaillonnage). This model was built in the early 1970s, small but still a pretty powerful machine. On a quick search I found a similar Renault 60 for only 3361 € without tax but Thomas paid only 1000 € for this one, and it starts easy, with a single turn of the key...
The vineyard is enjoying a very beautiful spring in 2020 and it will certainly help it recover from the past hardship (the untreated mildew of 2018 among others). Thomas shows me these very promising grapes of Chenin Blanc at the end of the flower stage. I guess it's very precious for him also to enjoy years without problems (last year was pretty good also), remember that rain, mildew, frost and hail are recurrent in the area year after year. Thomas took over the block in april 2019 and he began with the pruning, happily the spring and summer were fine if for a couple of heat waves. This april was the hottest and there's a lot of advance, the picking being forecasted here to be around 3 september (the earliest in the recent past was in 2011, it was 10 september).
The job of the day was bring the vine shoots (that grow fast in may) back between the wires, this will prevent them from being damaged when the tractor passes between the rows. The soil hasn't had herbicide for two years and of course he'll not use any, and Thomas borrowed a disk plow to a colleague so that he could, also using a spike-tooth plow with his straddle tractor to have the vineyard get rid of weeds without chemicals. The vines fared well even though of course a few roots just below the surface were ripped.
Thomas planted a few fruit trees in the rows, he likes to bring a break in the monoculture with them, it will bring other insects and birds also. His idea is have them grow along trellis if possible, because he uses a straddle tractor here. they set up a group with other growers of the area, La Joualle, with the goal to increase biodiversity in the vineyard, and they're working on this matter. The word joualle is an ancient reference to a way to farm, using fruit trees to let the vines grow on them, with other crops and vegetables on the ground, there are lots of things to explore in this direction.
The part with the old vines has a collection of pretty impressive and extended vines, their arms stretching out far on both sides. The wood here from left to right belongs to the same old vine. The earth on this block is beautiful, Thomas says the terroir is silty clays or Bournais Francs lying very close to the rock table, the tuff (tuffeau in French). See here this soil map of the Indre-et-Loire département. Thomas says he loves this time of the year with the contrast between the freshly plowed, ocher-colored soil and the fresh-green vine leaves. He had soil analysis made and the copper rates are pretty heavy with more than a century of Bordeaux mix use, especially that in the past they were heavy handed and they'd literally paint the foliage in blue. He will use little of this metal and a friend told him that there's a type of fungus that can anihilate the copper in the soil, he'll look in this direction and see if it's possible to make a trial in part of the block to see what can be done to lower the level of the metal in the ground.
Thomas kneels down here and there to check the vines and takes out a few buds, he's already done the debudding 2 weeks ago but a few ones have come back, no big thing, he says, just gardener's meticulousness when he has the time like here visiting the rows with me. For old goblets traines on trellis like here it's tricky to keep the sap flow harmonious when you do the pruning, so he's careful not to prune too short, he looks where the sap is going and prunes accordingly.
Some rows in the 3-hectare block (not this one) have leaves that are a bit yellowish and Thomas wondered where it came from, faulty rootstock or nutrient deficiency, but soil specialist Dominique Boutin came here and said it was probably caused by a faulty preparation of the field before planting, the growers back then having used the wrong tools or plow triggered what is called in French a semelle de labour, a layer of excessively-compacted soil at mid-depth, something that thereafter hinders the growth and harmonious development of the plant. See here an interesting document on soil compaction.
Before leaving we passed the parcel belonging to Domaine Huet next to Thomas', it a young vineyard, maybe 10 years old, Chenin of course. The soil is wholly plowed, no weeds left. At the end of the block Thomas has also a triangle-shaped parcel with young vines but 60 % missing, with 7 or 8-year-old vines looking as if they were only 3, he doesn't know what to do with this one, the remaining vines have a good load of grapes, he may use it to have a pied-de-cuve (it ripens quicker than the rest) to help start fermentations even if the others ferment naturally by themselves.
Here is the other tractor Thomas uses, this is a Loiseau straddle tractor from 1976, which he bought from the Maison Foreau. He had a spraying system put on the back. A straddle tractor goes over the rows which is convenient when the spacing between rows is limited. He paid a bit more than the Renault 60 foir this one but it has been very well maintained and is in perfect working condition. It is very light, needs very little gas and is easy to fix like all these vintage machines, there's no air-tight cabin but for organic farming that's not a problem I guess. He says it's important to know how to fix these tractors if necessary, and he knows a skilled mechanic with whom he learns the trade, going to his workshop to help him and learn at the same time.
We drove back to the cellar behind his house, this is a marvel of a cellar and chai, obviously with a hundred years or more of winemaking history. The cellar is just huge with several tunnels and rooms, this is a very comfortable location, and he wanted it attached to the house so that his children could see this work also. When you drive this narrow street at mid-slope there are plenty of these old houses with cellars in the back, just a few of them being used to keep making wine of course. Philippe Chigard and his wife Claude whome I visited a couple years ago live in the next village 5 kilometers away on the same mid-level slope. Here on the picture this is a basket press he got from a friend and he plans to change the wood staves to bring it back in use especially that it is smoother on the grapes, he'd use it for single-barrel cuvées.
Here is the press he's been using in 2019, it is an old non-pneumatic Vaslin press, easy to find second-hand, he got it from Tanguy Perrault who got a bigger press. This press here on the picture belonged previously to the late Christian Chaussard when he had a domaine in Vouvray, quite a long history of pressing nice grapes as you see. Here this part of the cellar is the chai, just past the wooden door on the left, this is also where a century ago they'd press the grapes and the big screw is still in place, the basket could be rebuilt around it if someone wanted. In the back you can see a large double cement tank.
This double cement tank or fermenter cast in a corner of the hill's mass is also an exciting piece of history, seems in pretty good shape. I guess the fact it's close to the door helped fermentations unfold, the deeper parts of the cellar being for barrels and élevage. Thomas thinks these tanks were used for the macerations of reds, after which they just had to take out the grapes with buckets and fill the big basket press nearby. Thomas says that maybe if he makes a red wine in the future he may use them again (it is possible to buy red grapes in the area like Côt for example).
In the back of this chai room toward the inside of the hill there's a gated door to what looks like a barrel cellar (there are still the racks on the ground to receive barrels) and under the gate there's some sort of small cement tank which must have been for decantation from the gross lees after pressing, before filling the barrels. To have a gate there meant that the wine wasd pretty precious already at that time.
Here's this barrel room from the inside with the rack for the barrels on the right, pretty nice volume and high ceiling, and this cellar on the whole seems pretty healthy with a humidity level that is not excessive, Thomas noticed also that it is very healthy, he just blocked a bit the air flow going through the gate with foil insulation so that it doesn't go through big temperature changes in summer and winter. Given the quality of the cellar achitecture I think the owners 100 or 150 years ago were taking care of their wines.
He settled in this cellar and house in august 2019, just shortly before harvest time, the cellar was empty and he had to find tools and tanks. He rented a white truck in the nearest town and drove through France to bring back the tools he found on the classified website Leboncoin, he also left paper notes in local viticulture shops where growers and wineries go buy their tools and products. The floor of the cellar is just compacted earth, it is not easy to move things with a hand pallet truck, her may have to put a cement slab here and there.
He got both stainless stell and fiber vats but he prefers using the fiber-plastic ones, he feels there's less reduction issues, more exchange with air. Thomas takes a sample from the 8-hectoliter stainless-steel vat which he bought in the south-west
of France (in the Gers département).
The Chenin here went through it fermentations (incl malolactic) and already had a racking. He has most of his wine in barrels but hadn't enough oak volume for all the wine and he also wanted to try another type of vessel. Also he thinks a tank wine can be blended with barrel wine, he'll see. The wine is not very high in alcohol he says, about 12 %. Nice tension in the mouth with richness, roundness feel as well, no alcohol feel, not jammy like Chenin can be sometimes, pretty easy to drink. On the young vines he made a first pick, taking all the grapes that could risk to rot if waiting more, then they waited a week, during which some rain occured, which prevented the alcohol level from going up but also lowered the acidity. Both batches were then blended. Bottled in the next few months, hopefully that will be without sulfites and unfiltered. His friend Tanguy has a bottling planned early july and he may have his small batch bottled at the occasion.
We walk to another cellar room (the place is huge with something like 15 different rooms and cellar galleries if I remember) with a single barrel standing in the middle, this is the Chenin from the last day of harvest. This is a 400-liter demi-muids, he found several of them in Anjou for 100 € apiece. Old vines here, it's a part of the parcel on a lower slope and he found interesting to vinify it separately and see what it gives. Different style of Chenin with more length in the mouth and and what I feel like a tannin touch in the mouth. The bottles along the wall is the pet-nat waiting for its disgorgement, Thomas needs to find riddling tables first to bring the sediment to the bottle neck.
Hrre he made an experiment (about 75 liters) with the thick lees and must put together in this small fiber tank to see what it gives, it's a long time he hadn't tasted the thing and it's interesting, not bad at all. the wine is pretty clear with the wine clearly separated from the solid sediment. Nice tannin feel here in the mouth, Thomas is surprised, as it is very different from a few months ago.
We walk to another distant cellar room with about 10 barrels, we taste one of them, this is Chenin from both young and old vines. The blue light is to ward off the insects, the drosophila from the wine in the barrels. Two of the barrels are new, the other are between 5 & 8 wines old. More oak feel here in the first barrel we taste but also what I feel like a vibrant energy. Almond notes also, says Thomas, he likes the structure feel at the end of the mouth. One of these barrels still has its sugar to finish.
We taste another barrel, with young Chenin, Blanchet parcel, picked september 4. Gas feel on the tongue maybe. 995 written on the black board, not fully dry yet. He has also old-chenin wine in two new barrels (demi-muids, the one in the middle of the room) from different cooperages, one made by Atelier Centre France (about which I often hear positive comments) and the other one by Mercurey. We first taste the Atelier Centre France : still turbid, not finished by far, you feel the sugar, could be between 15 & 20 grams, he hopes it will finish along the next weeks with the higher temperatures. The chenin in the Mercurey is also turbid, not finished. Thomas asked for a light toast, using steam in order to avoid the excessive toasted-oak aroma. The wine feels more fresh here maybe with a citrus, pink pomelos style. Thomas finds a bit of vanilla also as well as smoky notes.
Here you really have the early history of the cellar, when it was just a quarry to get this tuff stone. You can see particularly well on this stone the method of extraction and cutting to get the best tuff block quality. Stonemasons have dug the foothills along the Loire, the Cher river and anywhere they could, to extract this soft sandstone blocks that were used to build all the village houses, mansions and chateaux of the region, then the quarries became winery facilities and there's a possibility that even after they'd set up a chai and a basket press there in the mid 19th century, they'd keep digging deeper and extract tuff for more construction, gaining more storage volume in the process.
Before leaving the cellar Thomas grabbed a bottle of pet'nat which he subsequently disgorged on the terrace of the house. The day had been sunny and summer like and it was a welcome drink at the end of the afternoon. Thomas says he worked a few weeks at Bruno Duchêne (who I learn is from the Loir-et-Cher, his parents living next door to Hervé Villemade) in Banyuls (he did several harvests and came once for one month for the vinifications in 2013 or 2012) and he learnt a bit about pet-nat making as Pascal Potaire had come down there in this remote coast along the Mediterranean to help them make a small batch of bubbly. There's by the way a good bunch of natural-wine people in Banyuls and en enjoyed meeting them when he was there, people like for example Manuel Di Vecchi Staraz of Vinyer de la Ruca, he really explored natural wine while being in this region. His music group came there in Banyuls to perform with the natural-wine vignerons of the area for Les Neuf Caves (linked article about the event in a regional newspaper where Thomas is dubbed "the vigneron of the band").
This bubbly here, while not very cold because it was just in the cellar, tastes real good, fresh and sweet enough to make it really easy to go down, love it ! Speaking of his philosophy choice regarding the sulfites he'll try to mostly make wines without but doesn't forbid himself to never use any. He wants also to try for the same cuvée having part without any so2 and the other with a little of it to see how this translates.
Speaking of where he learnt to vinify Thomas says that working with Tanguy Perrault was great, this is the size of wine farm he felt he could fit. At the Joussets is a bigger structure, with employees, it's not the same. What was interesting also with Tanguy Perrault is that he makes whites only but his wife has a négoce dealing with reds, so he could learn on both colors with two different people. For the sales he hasn't yet found firm buyers although he has a few leads, and with the lockdown of course there was no way to get his wines known, At the turn of january/march he visited a few wine fairs but his own wines weren't ready and he thought he'd be able to show them the following months. But he's not in hurry, this will come in time. He estimates his total volume at about 70 hectoliters or 8000/9000 bottles, not a big volume but enough to live, he says.
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